


Time at Last

by Heart_Seoul_Soshi



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 19:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13038300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Seoul_Soshi/pseuds/Heart_Seoul_Soshi
Summary: The smallest of clocks, imprinted from birth on the skin of the wrist. Counting inexplicably, numbers ticking silently, onward and onward for years and years without fail. Mal's stopped the moment she laid eyes on a girl with hair of blue. Evie's stopped the moment she laid eyes on a girl with hair of purple.





	Time at Last

**Author's Note:**

> from an anonymous request on tumblr

They were the one constant in her life, the little numbers etched into her right wrist, steadily ticking forever onwards.  As a baby, little Mal never ceased to be fascinated by them, always watching the numbers ascend second by second with riveted curiosity.  She’d often point and gesture to the numbers to bring her mother’s attention to them, only to be met by scowls and huffs of annoyance from Maleficent.  Upon growing old enough to talk it was one of Mal’s repeated questions, asking what the numbers were, why they were on her wrist.  It garnered her nothing but more annoyed scowls and huffs, her mother shooing her away and telling her again and again that there was nothing there, that she was seeing things.  
  
But Mal always knew better.  She knew she wasn’t crazy, or hallucinating.  The little clock was indeed there ticking away on her skin; her mother just simply couldn’t see it.  It was the one thing she relied on, in a world where she couldn’t count on anything to be guaranteed, the clock was always there, always mysteriously marching forward.  
  
One day a commotion outside the castle drew a young Mal away from her colored pencils and out to the balcony, where something akin to a grand party was being held just a short walk away from her home.  Mal could see it all, and hear it all.  The music, the clapping, the cheers—and the sudden peal of tiny, tinkling laughter that drew her eyes to intensely search the crowd and find the source.  
  
A little girl just her age, easy to spot with her blue hair, sitting among the likes of Captain Hook and Lady Tremaine.  A little girl just her age whose laugh was like nothing Mal had ever heard before.  
  
Something, a strange tingle, began to dance through her skin.  An odd wave traveling a course through her body and seeming to stop at her wrist. Distractedly, Mal turned her hand over and glanced down, eyes going wide and mouth dropping in a gasp as she did so.  
  
“…Mom!  Mom!!” Mal called out in a panic, clutching her wrist as if she’d been injured there.  
  
Maleficent took her sweet time heading her way, Mal could just barely hear the leisurely footsteps over the frightened racing of her heart.  
  
“For evilness sake, what??” Maleficent poked her head into the room.  
  
“The numbers stopped!” Mal cried, running over to her mother.  "The clock isn’t going!“  
  
Maleficent rolled her eyes.  
  
”‘The clock’ again?  There is no clock.  I’ve told you time and time again, you’re seeing things.“  
  
"No, mom!  I was watching the party and—”  
  
“Party?” Maleficent pushed Mal aside and came further into the room, striding across the floor to the balcony and looking out upon the island square just as her daughter had.  "Party, huh?  So that’s what all that ridiculous noise was about.“  
  
Mal went to her mother’s side, gazing out among the festivities again.  
  
”…How come I wasn’t invited?“ she suddenly asked, watching that blue-haired girl play with a smug-looking tiger and a shifty-eyed lion with a scar down his face.  
  
"Oh please, you have better things to do than fraternize with the riff…now wait a minute, that’s a good question…”  
  
Mal tugged at her mother’s robes.  
  
“I want to go,” she said urgently.  "I want to see the girl with the b—"  
  
“Not invite  _my_  daughter, huh??” Maleficent yanked her robes free with a flourish.  "We’ll see about  _that!"_  
  
She turned and stomped off, leaving Mal alone once more.  The little girl rubbed the skin of her wrist like she could urge the clock to start back up again.  But it was no use.  The one thing she had always counted on was gone, the numbers frozen forever.  A deep-rooted sadness settled itself in the middle of her chest as she looked out over the balcony, sadness at suddenly losing this part of herself, and sadness at not going down to see the girl at the party.  Storm clouds suddenly brewed in the distance, and an ominous thunder rumbled overhead.

* * *

They were the one constant in her life, the little numbers etched into her left wrist, steadily ticking forever onwards.  
  
Evie had learned a long time ago to just stop talking about them and take them in stride.  No one else could see them, they counted for her and her alone; a nice thought that kept her company during the decade-long internment in her own castle.  But here she was now, banishment over, trading one set of gloomy corridors for another as she walked the maze of Dragon Hall to find her classroom. The plan here was to simply not get lost, which was going perfectly, until up ahead at the intersection of the hallway a petite girl stomped past, her waves of purple hair bouncing with each step before she disappeared around a corner.  
  
Evie stopped in her tracks at the mere glimpse of her, taken over by the oddest sensation skittering through her whole body. For some reason, although she had no idea what, her first instinct was to bring her hand up and look at her wrist.  
  
The clock had stopped.  The numbers froze. The sight of the stilled time set an icy chill creeping around her chest, which she fought through to get her legs moving again and go hurrying down the hall and around the corner as well, eyes frantically scanning for the girl in question.  But she was gone.  Long gone.  
  
Just like the counting clock, the one and only thing in her life that had ever been truly hers.  
  
Even months later, Evie would still find herself looking at her wrist every now and again, knowing exactly what she’d see but still sighing heavily when she was faced with the still, unmoving numbers.  
  
Even years later, Mal would still find herself idly rubbing the skin of her wrist, sometimes rubbing the numbers red with friction.  
  
That’s how it was now, sitting in Goodness class with her friends and the Auradon kids after having made the big graduating leap from Remedial Goodness.  
  
"Children, before we go, I have one last little lesson you might be interested in.”  
  
Fairy Godmother turned around and wrote down a page number on the chalkboard, pausing while everyone flipped through their textbooks.  
  
“With the former king and queen’s anniversary ball coming up, I thought I’d teach you about a very ancient and powerful type of magic—soulmates.”  
  
Mal kept rubbing her wrist as she distractedly glanced down at her textbook, her thoughts not there at all as she saw the words but didn’t read them.  
  
“Now, soulmates are exactly what they sound like, two people joined together by their very spirit, their innermost selves, completing and complimenting each other’s lives in every way.  Nowadays the soulmate is a very, very rare magic indeed, almost extinct, you might say,” Fairy Godmother explained.  "It’s been almost a century since the days when pairs of soulmates were found far and wide, but we’re all capable of living perfectly happy, fulfilled lives without an 'other half’.“  
  
Evie multitasked, listening to Fairy Godmother’s lecture and also avidly reading the two pages on soulmates in her textbook.  
  
"Even back when this type of magic was more common, not everyone had a soulmate.  It was a special type of gift that chose to give itself to certain individuals, just like any other kind of magic,” the headmistress went on.  
  
“So how would you know?” Jay asked, smirking mischievously.  "How would you know if you had a soulmate or not? Just go around kissing frogs until one turned into a princess?“  
  
Fairy Godmother shook her head.  
  
"No, Jay.  Everyone who carried this magic was born with a mystical clock in their wrist that only they could see, counting each and every second that passed.  Only when that person laid eyes on their soulmate would their clock stop, letting them know that their search was over.”  
  
_That_ got Mal’s attention.  
  
When Evie had transferred to their school back on The Isle of the Lost those months ago, Mal instantly remembered her as the blue-haired girl she’d watched from her balcony.  
  
What she’d forgotten to remember was that Evie was the blue-haired girl she’d been watching when the numbers ticking across her wrist had suddenly stopped.  
  
“Soulmates could start to see each other’s clocks when they’d found each other, but until then, the power to see their own clock belonged to them and them alone,” Fairy Godmother went on.  
  
For Evie, the memories were much fresher.  The memory of seeing Mal in the hallway before she’d even known she was Mal, the memory of her wrist clock stopping the moment she saw her.  Evie just hadn’t known what it meant.  She had the effect, but not the cause, and had been chalking the whole incident up to coincidence the entire time.  
  
Mal didn’t hear very much of the lesson after that, not above the thudding drumbeat of her heart.  And neither did Evie.  
  
Mal didn’t know why she stood outside of her bedroom door after classes ended that day with her fist raised to knock, it was  _her_  dorm after all.  So she went inside, where her best friend sat on the edge of her bed, seeming to be very engrossed in watching the carpet.  
  
“…E?  Can we talk?” she quietly asked.  
  
Evie tore her attention away from the floor, meeting her best friend’s eyes with a smile.  
  
“…Sure, M.”  
  
So Mal started across the room, heading for the edge of her own bed, before stopping on a dime and deciding to cautiously shuffle over to Evie’s. She took a seat beside her, and Evie let her.  
  
“What did you want to talk about?” Evie asked, anxiously clasping her hands together.  
  
“…Evie, you’re my best friend.  You know that, right?” Mal began.  
  
“Of course I do.”  
  
Mal took a deep breath.  There was really no easy way to segue into this.  
  
“…Dragon Hall wasn’t the first time I saw you.  I once saw you ten years ago, at your sixth birthday party.  I watched it from my balcony.”  
  
“Really??” Evie had no idea.  
  
Mal nodded.  
  
“I could hear you laughing, and then I found you in the crowd.  And, when I did…”  
  
Mal lifted her arm and pulled back the sleeve of her jacket a bit.  Evie didn’t see anything at first, but the more she stared in confusion, the more it faded clearly into sight; the numbers etched into Mal’s right wrist, the still, frozen numbers.  The tiniest of gasps escaped Evie, Mal almost didn’t hear it despite sitting so close.  At first, Evie timidly reached over, softly touching Mal’s wrist, tracing the shape of each number.  Then, she pulled back her own sleeve, revealing her clock to Mal.  
  
“…You passed in front of me that morning before our first class,” Evie said.  "I didn’t know what to think.“  
  
The two sat in silence then, glancing back and forth from each other.  
  
”…So what does this mean?“ Evie eventually asked, shattering the quiet.  
  
With another deep breath, Mal found her fingers lacing through Evie’s, holding her hand tight.  
  
"I think it means that reintroductions are in order.  Hi, I’m Mal, daughter of Maleficent…and I think I’m your soulmate.”  
  
Evie smiled, squeezing Mal’s hand.  
  
“Evie, Evil Queen’s daughter…and I think I’m  _your_  soulmate.  Nice to meet you, M.”  
  
Mal smiled right back, a shining, dazzling grin.  
  
“Nice to meet you too, E.”


End file.
